Path 2

Path 2

Atlantic Antic 2008

October 6, 2008

From the train station to Montero’s, this year’s Atlantic Antic was lovelier and louder and more crowded than usual. Some highlights:

You know HealthPlus is working a Brooklyn crowd when they offer cotton candy as a come-on.

Yes, Obamaburgers. Every block had at least one Obama angle. For instance:

You had to buy one at least.

But they were all good. So too were the little booths and booth-tenders. For instance, withered Roberta, who was running a stand devoted to “Thanatology.” What’s that? “Come on,” she said, “You’re not that dumb!” We had to admit we were curious about her death-obsessed table, which featured gravestone-rubbings and a morbidly detailed children’s book about the passing of loved ones. She took us across the sidewalk and unlocked the door of her ground-floor apartment to let us peruse her thanatobilia. We took a few pictures:

Okay, see you later, deathlady, we’re going to climb the new double-decker bus at the Transit Museum exhibit, bump our heads on the top floor (as we’re sure everyone else will), and take a picture:

That gives you some small idea of the scope: along the mile on Atlantic between Flatbush Avenue and Henry Street, we estimated 200,000 vistors, but we’re notoriously stingy. Maybe just that many people clustered outside Hank’s on 3rd Avenue to listen to the cowpunk bands, or went to Sahadi for felafel or spinach pie, or dug through the clothes racks at Brooklyn Industries, or dropped dollars for Darfur at the House of the Lord Church, or listened to the steel drum outside a corner bank. It was massive and multi-something-or-other and ultimately very down home. All in all, it was very Brooklyn.